Page 15 of Wolf’s Return (The Wolves of Langeais #4)

D’Artagnon licked the stew with a delicacy more suited to the man he had once been.

It had been years since he had sat at a table to eat—as a man—but he had not forgotten the etiquette his parents had instilled in him.

For all his apparent focus on his food, it was the conversation that held his attention. And Constance. And the wily old farmer.

Old Tumas and Anne. Who would have thought? He chuffed between mouthfuls of meat and vegetables. Does my brother know? Probably. As Tumas had pointed out—there was little you could hide from a wolf.

“Ah, she was a strange one, all right.” Tumas pointed at Constance.

“And not just because her eyes were two different colors, either.” A faraway look settled in Tumas’ eyes.

“It was a long time ago, but I can still remember the strange way she spoke, as though she had come from a distant land.” He waved a weathered hand at them.

“She spoke our language fair enough, but yer could always tell when she was talkin’.

Stuck out like a bristle on a badly tanned hide, it did.

And for a healer, the woman was cold. She could chill the air with a look, a word, sometimes just by breathin’ the same air as yer. ”

Tumas shivered, and D’Artagnon abandoned his stew.

Unease threaded through his gut. Even as a memory, this woman affected Tumas.

The old farmer would have experienced much in his long life.

Had lived amongst werewolves, served them since he was a boy.

Lived in the village of an alpha werewolf.

That Tumas feared a human woman, witch or no, was a little concerning.

“Cordelia, her name was, and she scared all us young ’uns,” continued Tumas.

“And not a few of our parents, too. Whenever us children saw her coming, we done drop everything and run. All of us. Not a damn one of us brave enough to face her. Yer dared not get sick, because then she had reason to visit yer cottage. To visit yer.”

Constance sat in stunned silence, concern tainting her scent.

He shuffled a little closer and pressed against her arm.

Like he had pressed into her soft curves last eve.

The memory sliced through his brain, bringing a heat to his body difficult to ignore.

He should retreat, but he could not force himself to move.

“Yer grand-pére must ‘ave sensed somethin’ about her, for he took his time decidin’ if he should let her in the village. But the woman was with child, and like yer father, yer grand-pére was never one to turn away a woman in need.” Tumas lapsed into silence and focused on his stew.

Constance took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Can you tell me what she did that finally had the villagers casting her out?”

D’Artagnon was glad she had asked the question. Memories had a way of distorting things over the years, becoming bigger, more potent in the mind than in truth. Tumas had been but a child.

“There is not much I can tell yer. Yer must understand, I was a boy, not privy to the talk of adults. But, like most young boys, if my parents forbade me anythin’, it only made me more determined.

One night, when my parents rushed off to old man Brun’s hut, threatening me with a whippin’ if I left the cottage, it set a fire under me like no other.

I followed ‘em and peered through the window.”

His chest heaved. “To this day, I wish I had listened to me parents and stayed on me sleeping pallet, warm by the fire. What I saw…” He raised his gaze to D’Artagnon’s.

“In all my years, I have never seen the likes of it. Not even when yer father tore apart that good for nothin’ servant Anne had taken up with. ”

D’Artagnon quirked his eyebrow. He had heard of the death of Anne’s beau—trampled by his own horse, or so his father had led him to believe.

Old Tumas chuckled. “Not the story yer remember, young wolf? I assure yer, it was yer father that killed ’im.

And with good reason, too. Was gonna spread the truth about the pack.

He was not family, yer see. Given a job at the keep because Anne had fallen in love with him.

Then he betrayed her and planned on betraying yer father.

I tell yer no lie. Was not much left of him once yer father was done with ’im.

An awful sight. But what I saw through that window that night… ”

Old Tumas squeezed his eyes shut. “It still haunts me some nights. The blood, so much blood, comin’ out of his ears, his eyes, his nose and his mouth. And old man Brun redder than a blacksmith’s face working at his forge. Like somethin’ had boiled him alive. She had boiled him alive.”

The little healer’s face paled, and she shivered beside him. Against his better judgment, he pressed closer, laying a paw across her knee. Like he had eased an arm around her waist as she had slept. He forced the images away. Focus.

She rested her hand on his paw, her thumb brushing across his fur. His body trembled. Merde. This woman tested his control.

“How did you know it was her?” Constance asked, snapping him out of his thoughts.

Tumas opened his eyes. “Old man Brun had argued with ’er that morn, then stormed off toward the keep.

Perhaps to talk yer grand-pére . About what, no one ever found out.

He never made it. They found his body that night.

No one else in the village had cause to harm him.

And I never saw the likes of an illness do that to a man.

Have yer?” He speared a gaze at Constance.

She shook her head, tightening her hand on his paw.

Tumas poked at his stew. “Someone must have got word up to the keep, because yer grand-pére came down with half the pack at his back. Seems it put the wind up ’im, too. ‘Twas only ’cause of the babe he banished her, instead of…” Tumas let his words hang in the air.

His grand-pére could have killed the witch. Should have killed the witch.

“What about the babe’s father?” asked Constance.

Tumas shrugged. “She arrived in the village alone, her belly rounded with the babe. No one knows where she came from, or what trouble she was in.”

“And where did she go?” pressed Constance.

Again, Tumas shrugged. “We never saw the likes of her again. Somethin’ to be grateful for.”

“I thought you said…at supper…” She paused, a spoonful of stew poised near her mouth. “So you have never had another witch—healer—in the village since?”

Something in the little healer’s voice tugged at D’Artagnon. Disappointment? Resignation? He should pull away before he considered shifting so he might hold her hand in his.

There was a glint in Old Tumas’ eyes. “Now I never said that, girlie. And it is a good thing yer asked. There was another healer—lovely lass by the name of Helene—who lived here for a time.”

Constance gasped and dropped her spoon into her bowl. “Helene? My mother?”

Interesting. The witch, the one he had spied in the library the night Marie had arrived, had once lived in the d’Louncrais village.

Not by the time his father had summoned her and little Constance.

Yet still, his father had maintained the connection.

That Helene, and now Constance, had a book full of information about the Wolves of Langeais spoke of how far back that connection had gone.

His father had trusted Helene. His brother trusted Constance.

D’Artagnon shook out his fur and snatched his paw away. The woman had suggested binding him in silver. He should keep that in mind.

Tumas’ face screwed up in a wily smile. “She was yer mother? I figured as much. Apart from those eyes of yours, yer have yer mother’s look.”

Constance raised her chin and met the old man’s gaze head on. “Did you run her out of this village, too?”

Tumas set his spoon down and pointed a gnarled finger at her.

“Yer have the wrong of it there, girlie. She was a good healer. A kind lass. Many of us hoped she would up and settle with one of the young lads ’ere.

We did not run ’er out. Not Seigneur Jacques either.

She left of ’er own accord, and no one truly knew why.

But she had taken up with that good for nothin’ stable hand, Didier.

Cannot blame a woman for runnin’ from him. ”

Didier?

Old Tumas nodded at him. “Yer father run ’im out of the village, too, like ’e did Cordelia. Never saw either of ’em again. As for Didier, good riddance, if yer ask me.” He turned to Constance. “And before yer ask, yer mother ne’er had no little girl with ’er while she was ’ere.”

Constance frowned, her shoulders sagging, and she stared at her bowl of half-eaten food.

For a moment, she had brimmed with hope.

At a connection to her mother? That she may have found her father?

Only to sink into disappointment at Tumas’ poor opinion of Didier.

It tugged at him, at the man inside the wolf.

The little healer, all alone against the world.

The stink of her loneliness was so thick in the air, even Old Tumas with his rheumy eyes and grouchy demeanor could not fail to feel it, to be moved by it.

D’Artagnon huffed. He leaped off the seat and padded over to the door.

Time to go. There was nothing more Old Tumas could tell them that would make sense of the coincidence of names.

And if he were to stay here any longer, he might do something sentimental.

Something stupid to lighten her mood. Like another uncontrolled shift.

He pushed the door open with his nose, and fresh air filled his lungs, but her scent, her heavy emotions, followed him.

As did the woman herself, thanking Old Tumas and his daughter for the information, and for the meal.

They headed back to the keep, side by side, in silence, Constance clutching that book to her chest as though it were the only friend she had in the world.